Despite Bangladesh’s remarkable record in reducing poverty, the presence of high numbers of extremely poor people poses a daunting development challenge for the Government. Bangladesh has successfully... Show More + reduced child and maternal mortality, but the country still remains among the 10 countries with highest prevalence of malnutrition: 41% children below the age of 5 are stunted, according to the World Health Organization.Well targeted and implemented conditional cash transfers have a significant impact on reducing poverty and improving nutrition levels. To support this, the World Bank approved the US$300.00 million Income Support Program for the Poorest (ISPP) Project, along with two other projects on December 16, 2014. Based on the pilot initiative called ‘Shombhob’, ISPP aims to provide conditional cash transfers to the 600,000 poorest mothers with the objective of reducing their consumption poverty while improving their children's nutrition and cognitive development. The project wi Show Less -

The Bank Group has transferred $105 million in emergency funding to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to fight Ebola — more money to date than any other international organization,... Show More + the president said. Overall, the Bank Group has committed $400 million to support treatment and containment.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that in a worst-case scenario, 1.4 million people could become infected with Ebola.“We must do all we can to prevent thousands more needless deaths and an economic catastrophe. … Our ability to boost shared prosperity in West Africa — and potentially the entire African continent — may be quickly disappearing,” Kim said. “Unless we stop the infection’s spread now, there will be little prosperity to share, to say nothing of the number of people who will be unable to share in what remains.”Boosting shared prosperity and tackling inequality requires two key steps on the World Bank Group’s part, said Kim. The Show Less -

Sharper focus needed on neonatal mortalityNEW YORK, 16 September 2014 – New data released today by the United Nations show that under-five mortality rates have dropped by 49 per cent between 1990 and 2013.... Show More + The average annual reduction has accelerated – in some countries it has even tripled – but overall progress is still short of meeting the global target of a two-thirds decrease in under-five mortality by 2015.New estimates in Levels and Trends in Child Mortality 2014 show that in 2013, 6.3 million children under five died from mostly preventable causes, around 200,000 fewer than in 2012, but still equal to nearly 17,000 child deaths each day.“There has been dramatic and accelerating progress in reducing mortality among children, and the data prove that success is possible even for poorly resourced countries,” said Mickey Chopra, head UNICEF’s of global health programmes. “There is now a gathering momentum from countries in every part of the world to make sure proven, cost-effective i Show Less -

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in improving health outcomes. However, despite the progress of recent years, many in Bangladesh continue to struggle to access quality health services – negatively... Show More + impacting on individuals, households; and costing the economy millions of dollars in days lost due to poor health. The Health Sector Development Program (HSDP) aims to support the commitment of the Government of Bangladesh to ensure equitable access to quality health services and to strengthen health systems with the ultimate goal to achieve better health outcomes, particularly for women, children, the poor and the marginalized.ChallengeBangladesh has been awarded the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Award 2010. Since 1990, child mortality rate has declined by more than two-thirds and the country is on track to reach MDG targets 4 and 5. Still, significant development challenges remain in the health sector, including the double burden of non-communicable and communicable dise Show Less -

Kim urges world leaders to tackle poverty through increasing access to improved sanitationWASHINGTON, April 11, 2014 – World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim today, at a meeting with global ministers... Show More + of finance, water and sanitation, called on world leaders to take urgent action to provide access to basic sanitation services for their citizens, as a means to fight poverty. The remarks come ahead of the IMF-World Bank Group Spring Meetings.“We’re here today to prevent millions of needless deaths of people – most of them poor children – who die because of a lack of sanitation,” said Kim.An estimated 2.5 billion people lack access to functioning toilets or sanitary means of disposing human feces. This includes the 1 billion people who practice open defecation near rivers and fields, spreading germs from human waste through food, water, and washing of clothes. The resulting diarrheal disease leads to the deaths of thousands of children every day, and countless other negative impacts Show Less -

Findings from 11 countries link universal coverage to inclusive and sustainable growthTOKYO, December 6, 2013 – Today, the Global Conference on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for Inclusive and Sustainable... Show More + Growth was convened in Japan. This conference was co-organized by the Government of Japan and the World Bank Group under the Japan-World Bank Group Partnership Program for UHC (Partnership Program). The Partnership Program supported systematic analyses of health policies and programs in 11 countries including Japan, with the aim of drawing lessons from Japan and other country experiences with UHC, in order to respond to the growing demand from low- and middle-income countries for assistance in developing UHC policies and strategies. As the culmination of the two-year partnership, the ministerial conference was held to share challenges and experiences in UHC among countries and to disseminate Japan’s experience and knowledge. The 11-country study released at today’s confer Show Less -

Disease burden from most communicable, newborn, nutritional, and maternal diseases declined while ischemic heart disease, chronic respiratory diseases, and road injuries are causing more premature death... Show More + and disability in South Asia than they did 20 years agoWASHINGTON, September 4, 2013 - People are living longer in South Asian countries than ever before, and the region has made tremendous progress in reducing premature death and disability from communicable and nutritional diseases such as pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and malnutrition. At the same time, early death and illness from non-communicable diseases and injuries increased between 1990 and 2010. Healthy years of life lost from ischemic heart disease, or coronary artery disease (up by 73%), low back pain (up 63%), and diabetes (up 104%) increased by particularly dramatic levels. Rapid development has likely contributed to a 58% increase in road injury over two decades. Self-harm (primarily suicide) rose as a leading cause of p Show Less -

ChallengeBangladesh, with about 150 million inhabitants on a landmass of 147,570 square kilometers, is among the most densely-populated countries in the world. While poverty in both urban and rural areas... Show More + declined by an impressive 19 percentage points in the last decade-and-a-half, the absolute number of people below the poverty line remains significant. With around 64 million people still below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day (2010), Bangladesh faces considerable development challenges. Bangladesh’s geographical position makes it one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and natural calamities like cyclones and floods. Sixty percent of the worldwide deaths caused by cyclones in the last 20 years occurred in Bangladesh. Sustained growth in recent years has rapidly increased the demand for energy, transport and telecommunications services. However, insufficient planning and investment have now resulted in severe infrastructure deficits.SolutionThe International Show Less -

November 28, 2012 – Sex worker Akram Pasha remembers when his hometown of Mysore, India—an idyllic south­­ern tourist hub known for a Maharajah’s palace and its many universities—stood on the brink of... Show More + an explosive epidemic.In 2004, a new community-based organization in the city, called Ashodaya Samithi, conducted a first-ever survey of local sex workers and found an HIV prevalence of 25%.“We were shocked,” said Pasha, who now serves as director of Ashodaya Academy, which trains sex workers in HIV prevention, leadership and community mobilization. “It could have been any one of us. We knew we had to do something to protect that 25% and prevent it from spreading to the other 75%.”At the time, Mysore had no HIV prevention programs in place, and there was only one HIV testing and counseling center at the district hospital. Services simply weren’t reaching those who needed them most.“There wasn’t a condom to be seen,” said Dr. Sushena Reza-Paul, an assistant professor of public health with Show Less -

DR. KIM: Thank you, all, so much for coming and welcome to the World Bank.As always, I have some very nice prepared remarks, and so I will give them out of respect for the people who prepared them,... Show More + but I'm also going to talk a little bit about from personal experiences. Hundreds of millions of children and adults in Africa live at risk of disfigurement, impaired development, blindness, and even death from seven major preventable, neglected--so called neglected tropical diseases, includes river blindness, elephantiasis, trachoma, and various types of [? 00:37] [unclear] parasites. It's not that these diseases really have been neglected. It's the people who suffer from them who have been neglected. Protecting poor people from preventable diseases and from acute suffering remains a part of our mission to end poverty and [unclear] Show Less -

The Honorable Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr. A. F. M. Ruhal Haque; Mr. Iqbal Mahmood, Senior Secretary of the Economic Relations Division; Mr. Humayun Kabir, Senior Secretary of the Ministry... Show More + of Health and Family Welfare; Development Partners; Government officials; Distinguished Colleagues; the Media; Ladies and Gentlemen.This is a wonderful occasion to sign the Agreement for a multi-donor trust fund with Government, making the Bangladesh Health Sector-wide Program one of the largest Sector Programs in the world. Let me congratulate the Government of Bangladesh for the leadership provided to make this program a reality. You have truly brought all financiers together under the ambit of the national program. Let me also congratulate the key agencies - AusAID, DFID, Sida and USAID - who have joined this financing agreement to align their initiatives with the national program in order to strengthen country systems and capacities. The pooled fund includes the multi-donor trust fu Show Less -

DHAKA, September 12, 2012: Representatives of the Governments of Australia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States joined together today to witness the signing of a Multi-Donor Trust Fund... Show More + Grant Agreement for the Bangladesh Health Sector Development Program (HSDP). The agreement, signed between the Government of Bangladesh and the World Bank, will channel US$ 280 million of development partner grant funds to support the Government’s health sector wide program for a period of five years. The Government’s health sector program builds on Bangladesh’s achievements in the sector and is designed to improve health services and strength health systems. The program costs around US$ 7 billion, financed 75 percent by the Government and the remainder by development partners. It targets resources to the poor to create a health care system that caters to the needs of the people. External funding for the HSDP includes the Multi Donor Trust Fund of US$ 280 million and the World Ba Show Less -

“Ending AIDS and Poverty”Your Excellencies and honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends,As we look back on the history of this epidemic, it is hard to say that there is any one... Show More + moment when the tide began to turn. Because the truth is that we have been turning back the tide of AIDS, step by painful step, for 30 years.And at nearly every turn, it is the activists, and their communities, that have led the way.It was activists and communities who devised safer sex, promoted condom use, needle exchange and virtually all the behavioral prevention we use today.It was activists who transformed drug development and regulatory processes, and involved patients in clinical research, cutting drug approval times in half in the global north.It was activists in Durban in 2000 who began to push for access to antiretrovirals in the developing world and who kept pushing and are pushing still for them to be affordable and available to everyone who needs them, everywhere.And it wa Show Less -

GAFSP is just one of the many ways that the World Bank Group (WBG) is working to put food first. Other World Bank Group efforts include:In response to drought in the Horn of Africa, the World Bank Group... Show More + is providing $1.8 billion to save lives, improve social protection, and foster economic recovery and drought resilience.A first-of-its-kind risk management product, provided by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), will enable protection from volatile food prices for farmers, food producers, and consumers in developing countries.The Global Food Crisis Response Program is helping 40 million people in 47 countries through $1.5 billion in support.The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) framework for action to address undernutrition was endorsed by over 100 partners, including the World Bank.The WBG is boosting spending on agriculture to some $6 billion to $8 billion a year from $4 billion in 2008.The WBG is coordinating with UN agencies through the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Se Show Less -

IDA Credit: US$358.9 millionTerms: Maturity = 40 years; Grace = 10 yearsProject ID: P119357Project Description: The objective of the project is to support efforts to improve health services for children,... Show More + women, the poor and the marginalized. Show Less -

With hundreds of thousands of women still dying each year from childbirth—and on the eve of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) five-year countdown summit in New York—renowned model and maternal health... Show More + advocate Christy Turlington Burns will preview her debut documentary, No Woman, No Cry, a powerful portrayal of at-risk pregnant women in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala and the United States. A high-level panel discussion will follow to discuss progress that has been made and what more must be done.Participants will include:Christy Turlington Burns, Maternal Health AdvocateSuraya Dalil, Minister of Health, AfghanistanRep. Nita Lowey, Chair, Foreign Operations Subcommittee, U.S. House of Representatives (D-NY)Purnima Mane, Deputy Executive Director, United Nations Population FundNgozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Bank Managing DirectorThe event starts at 11 a.m. with remarks, a preview of the documentary, and a panel discussion. Christy Turlington Burns, Suraya Dalil and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Show Less -

Vienna/Washington, July 21, 2010 — HIV prevalence in India and South Asia is growing among sex workers, injecting drug users, and other marginalized groups largely because of a widespread failure to prevent... Show More + stigma and discrimination toward people living with AIDS, or at high risk of contracting the virus, according to a new report launched today at the global AIDS summit in Vienna, Austria.The new report by the World Bank and the International Centre for Research on Women―Tackling HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination in South Asia―says that despite prevention and other efforts to reduce high-risk behaviors such as unprotected sex, buying and selling of sex, and injecting drug use, HIV vulnerability and risk remain high. Stigmatizing attitudes in the general population and discriminatory treatment by health providers and local officials, among others, intensify the marginalization of vulnerable groups at highest risk, driving them further from the reach of health services and desperate Show Less -